Through the Fire

by Shawn Grady

  Laura squeezed his hand.

  A tear dropped down my cheek, surprising me. “Thank you.” I wiped my eyes. “It’s late. I should let you rest. Do they think you’ll be home by Thanksgiving?”

  Laura looked at Matt and nodded. “The doctor is optimistic that he will.”

  “All right.” I tapped Matt’s foot. “Take care, brother.”

  “You too,” he mouthed.

  Julianne touched my arm. “Wait for me, okay?”

  I stood in the hall, watching nurses down the corridor write in thick chart binders. Julianne exchanged a few soft words before waving good-bye and closing the curtain. We walked without a word to the elevator lobby. She pushed the Down button. I glanced at my watch.

  “So”—she put her hands in her pockets—“guess who just got arrested?”

  CHAPTER

  39

  Ding.

  The doors disappeared into the walls. We stepped inside, separated by a flight team attending an unconscious patient attached to wires and tubes.

  “How’s that rhythm?”

  “Still throwing ectopy.”

  “Runs of tach?”

  “Little salvos. Multifocal.”

  Julianne made a face from her corner. I raised and lowered my eyebrows. The flight crew exited on the first floor, hurrying with the gurney toward the ER. It was already nine thirty. I felt as if I’d lived a week in a day. But tiredness didn’t tempt me. My mind was spinning. Had Blake been telling the truth? Was he working alone?

  I stepped out with Julianne. “So. Do tell.”

  She fished her keys from her purse. “Oh, come on now. You know.”

  “You want me to guess?”

  “Do you really have to? Come on, O’Neill, this is your chance to redeem yourself.”

  “Redeem? For what? For not knowing you were related to Matt?”

  She drew her mouth up to one side.

  “Okay, all right. All right. My guess is that you are referring to one Blake Williams.”

  “Exactly.” She searched my face. “Isn’t that great news? I mean, he’s just been brought in for questioning, but it still—”

  A young man in dark blue scrubs steered a hospital bed up to the elevators. Julianne twisted her lips and tapped her leg. The elevator opened and he went in.

  The door closed and I scratched my head. “Are they suspicious about his monopoly on the evidence?”

  “And the lack of it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s one rumor.”

  Another technician walked down the hall with a cart.

  “What do you think about getting out of here?” I said. “How about some coffee? I’d love to hear more.”

  She glanced at the time. “Um . . . yeah.”

  I cringed. I saw the heartbeat of potential going to flatline.

  I’d make it easy for her. “Oh. Yeah, you’re probably right. It’s too late—”

  “Oh, no, not for me. No. I could have a cup of coffee and fall asleep a half hour later.”

  We’ve got a pulse. “Wow. Yeah. Really?”

  “I just wanted to make sure that you meant tonight.” She glanced at the floor. “I’d love to grab a cup.”

  Yogi Berra was right. This night was far from over. My smile must have said it. Julianne started walking.

  I came alongside. “Where to? I’ll buy.”

  “How about Pneumatic Diner?”

  “Sounds great. Which way is your car?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “In the garage. How about I meet you there?”

  “Fair enough.”

  We climbed a staircase to the second floor. A girl at the cash register answered the phone. “Pneumatic dot com. This is your mom.”

  Cool blues and pinks of neon art glowed along the ceiling— other work from local artists hung around the high walls of the otherwise compact room, the center of which was occupied by three employees preparing and serving in a U-shaped bar/kitchen.

  Cash Register Girl nodded to us and put the line on hold. She led us around to the far side of the room, where we sat on tall chairs at a small square table next to a window. The lights of downtown glowed in the east.

  Julianne placed her purse on the floor. The waitress returned with menus and sweating ice water glasses. We ordered cappuccinos and a piece of chocolate cake.

  I drew an A-O in the glass condensation. “So, how is the new position going? I mean, the whole acting deputy inspector in the field . . .”

  She shrugged. “Honestly, I feel a bit like a second-class citizen.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, I’m not bona fide, to start. And the department vehicle they gave me . . . Don’t get me started.”

  I laughed. “It’s that beat up old Bronco, right?”

  “Yes. Can you believe that?”

  The waitress set down our coffees and cake.

  I moved my water near the window. “I can’t believe that thing is still running.”

  “It isn’t. Well, barely. And apparently Mauvain thinks he’s in charge of fleet maintenance now. He made me make an appointment to take it to a shop tomorrow.” She sliced a small piece of cake.

  “What’s wrong with it this time?”

  She swallowed the bite, tilted her head back and forth, and looked at the table. “Something with the carburetor . . . No, radiator. Manifold system?”

  “You have no idea, do you?”

  “None. Absolutely none.” She grinned, then pressed her lips together. “I don’t have chocolate in my teeth, do I?” She checked her reflection in the window. “Okay, good. All I know is that it smokes a lot and doesn’t move very fast.”

  “Sounds like a lot of District One patients.”

  She laughed, covering her mouth with her napkin.

  Chill lounge beats permeated the room from inset wall speakers.

  She crossed her legs. “So about your confrontation with Blake. I heard all about that.”

  I rubbed my jaw. “He has a wicked right hook.”

  “Let me see.” She reached out and turned my cheek.

  Her fingers felt soft and warm. Outside, the city seemed empty and cold.

  “It still looks sore,” she said.

  I breathed out the word yeah.

  She pulled her hand away.

  I sipped my coffee. “How’d you end up going out with a guy like that, anyway?”

  She smirked. “It was just by chance. I met him through a girlfriend of mine.”

  “And you still wanted to go into arson investigation after that?”

  She chuckled. “No and yes. My degree is actually in chemistry. A couple years into Davis and I was over him. I started taking fire prevention classes at the community college here when I came home for the summers.”

  She brought her arms together in her lap. “So . . . Blake being brought in for questioning . . . not good news to you?”

  I felt the cold window with the backs my fingers. “I know. You’d think I’d be ecstatic, right?”

  “But . . . you’re not.”

  I shook my head.

  “Why? Is it because you’re just too hurt?”

  I caught her eyes. “I guess you already know the whole story.”

  Her mouth turned, contrite. “I totally understand if you don’t want to talk about it. For me, of course, it was a lot different. I wasn’t engaged. But I can still kind of relate. But it’s got to feel like a double whammy for you.” She lifted her mug and looked away. “Sorry, that’s not the most sensitive way to put it.”

  “No, it’s okay. I’d known that things weren’t working out with Christine for a while. I just didn’t want to admit it to myself.”

  “Too stubborn?” Her eyes creased.

  I shook my head. “How is it you know me so well?”

  She smiled and ran her finger along the brim of her cup. “So. Back to the question.”

  “Blake?”

  “You’re getting sharper, O’Neill.”

  I chuckled. “I don
’t know. I’m this big emotional blender right now. It’s not just that he cheated behind my back with Christine. It’s that if he’s the arsonist, then he’s responsible.”

  Her brow tightened. “For your father’s fire.”

  “I just don’t know how to process that.”

  “But why?”

  “I don’t know. Just the thought of it. It’s all so—”

  “No. I mean, why would he? What motivation could Blake have? What did he have against your father?”

  I shook my head. “My dad always got along with everybody. Well, pretty much.”

  “Who didn’t he get along with?”

  “Mauvain.”

  She leaned back with her coffee cup in both hands. “Bad blood?”

  “It got to where they wouldn’t speak on shift.”

  “Was it because Mauvain got promoted to BC?”

  I laughed. “No. Definitely not. My dad never had any aspirations above captain.”

  “So what happened, then?”

  I took a bite of cake and thought for a moment. “It wasn’t one thing. They were just different from the beginning, you know? Mauvain is the type who gets his sense of self-worth from status and title. He and my dad were academy mates, but he’s always had this air about him. My dad saw right through that and had fun with it, found ways to push his buttons. You know, typical fireman.”

  “Mauvain probably didn’t see the humor in that.”

  I grinned. “No. Not so much.”

  Our waitress approached. “You two doing okay? Can I get you anything else?”

  I looked at Julianne. She shook her head.

  “No,” I said. “Thank you.”

  The waitress walked off. I leaned my forearms on the table. “My dad respected guys for their work ethic, not their lapel brass. Guys like Waits who haven’t flinched at running after midnight for twenty years.”

  “Hmm.” She looked as though she was checking off a list in her mind. “Was there anyone else your dad didn’t get along with?”

  I shrugged. “He and my uncle would have their little arguments. Just family conflict stuff.” A siren wailed. Engine Four grumbled down Ralston Avenue, light bar spinning.

  “Did they argue a lot?”

  “I don’t know. They had this sibling rivalry thing going. Cormac had some issue with my grandfather always criticizing him and praising my dad. My dad promoted. Cormac never did. That sort of thing.”

  She inhaled the steam from her cup, waiting, listening.

  I continued. “I don’t know. Their mom left them when they were pretty young.”

  “Your grandmother?”

  “Yeah. I don’t even really think of her like that.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “I’m not sure if she’s even still alive.”

  “How young were they when she . . .”

  “Left? I think my dad was nine. My uncle would have been eleven.” I looked at the speakers. “Who is this band playing?”

  “How did your uncle take her leaving?”

  What’s with the twenty questions? “He probably took it the hardest.”

  “Why him more than your father?”

  “I don’t know.” I shifted in my seat. “I guess he was more attached to her. He’d always had a hard time connecting with my grandfather. Do you remember when my grandfather was chief?”

  She nodded. “I remember reading about him in the paper. He passed away not long after your father, right?”

  “Six months. It took its final toll on his heart.”

  I picked up my cup. An espresso-tinged crescent painted the inside. The room darkened a bit, and the conversations and clinking of plates and the scuffling of shoes and the music all faded into an audio soup. Fatigue blanketed my mind.

  Julianne set her fork down. “Have you been feeling any heat from the department?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Have you . . . Do you feel like folks are pointing fingers?”

  “At who? Me?”

  She nodded.

  “For what? Hartman?”

  “No, not really. I mean more in general.”

  She scraped icing on the plate with her fork. “You know. With you being gone after Hartman’s fire.”

  “And . . .”

  “And . . . just the fact that you were gone for a week and that bunch of fires started up.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “I’m not—” She exhaled. “I just thought that might have raised a few eyebrows. That’s all.”

  “Is that really all?”

  “You don’t need to get defensive about it, Aidan.”

  “I don’t? Well, that’s a relief, because this conversation has been starting to feel more like an inquisition.”

  “I’m not trying to judge you. I’m just asking about how things are going.”

  Asking or interviewing? I leaned back and crossed my arms. I couldn’t believe I’d let myself fall for it. “So that’s why you’re here.”

  “Excuse me? I am here because you invited me. I wanted to get to know you better and to lend a supporting—”

  “Role in the arson investigation?”

  She straightened. An offended look splashed across her face.

  Nice act. I pinched the bridge of my nose. “You know what?” I stood and threw a twenty on the table. “No wonder you once fell for Blake. You two are a lot alike.”

  CHAPTER

  40

  B utcher and Lowell were whispering something when I walked into the app bay. There was a flitting moment of surprise and hesitation as I stood with my turnout bag slung over my shoulder. I broke the silence with a morning greeting of “How’s it goin’?”

  “Aidan. Good,” Butcher said. “How’s that jaw?”

  I thought it curious of him to care. “A little stiff.”

  He twisted one side of his moustache and eyed me.

  Lowell shifted his weight. “Well, hey, Mark, I’m going to make sure our new kid’s fueling the BC rigs.”

  “Right, I’ve got to check the training schedule anyway.”

  I let them make their escape before dropping off my gear by the rig.

  I took the stairs two at a time to the third floor and walked back to my dorm cube. While making my bed I noticed a thick book resting on the desk. It was soft leather bound and burgundy with gilded pages. A sticky note curled off the cover.

  Aidan,

  A dear friend of mine gave this to me many years ago in our academy. Thought you might want it.

  Ben

  In the lower right corner of the cover I read the inscription: James O’Neill.

  I flipped the sheets and fanned the scent of old leather and binding glue by my face. My thumb caught and it flopped open, as if it had found a familiar place.

  Isaiah.

  A verse stood highlighted in orange, the outer end of the rectangle darker with ink.

  Chapter forty-three.

  Verse two.

  I ran my finger underneath it.

  “When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you.”

  Static chirped from the ceiling speaker.

  Tones.

  “Battalion Two, Rescue One, Engine One, Engine Two, Engine Three, Truck One with the safety officer to multiple reports of a structure fire . . .”

  I pulled up my drops in the back of the rig as Kat rolled us out, first on the apron. I kept my balance with a hand on the doorframe as we turned onto the street, my other hand pulling over a suspender. Swinging on my coat, I dropped into the jumpseat, watching the ladder truck emerge from the bay, Ben Sower in the captain’s seat, working his arms into his jacket.

  I caught a glimpse of dark smoke building in bulbs toward the sky, like a hellish ashy snowman. The smooth hickory of my axe handle felt right in my palm.

  And then I heard it.

  Quick. So fast and fine that I couldn’t say if it was a word or an image, but it came in a flash of knowledge.


  Four vehicles, all on fire.

  I pressed the intercom button on my headset. “Cap, what kind of occupancy is this?”

  Butcher held up the printout to read it. “It says Ace Auto Repair.”

  The city zipped by in horizontal lines.

  Lowell cracked his neck. Kat swung the rig down an old industrial avenue between brick buildings girded with goosenecks thick with wires stretching to power poles. The engine bounced with potholes and broken sections of concrete. Kat brought her to a stop just past an alleyway adjacent to a single-story brick structure. Tenebrous smoke belched from its far side.

  Lowell hopped out his door for the nozzle. I grabbed a hand light and a Halligan bar and circled around the engine, my father’s axe hanging from its belt sheath. The city swarmed with the sounds of sirens, the balance of the first alarm assignment fast on our tail.

  The auto shop sat on an elevated plot, encompassed all the way down the alley by a chain-link fence. Short of running down a full block and doubling back, our only access to the fire would be either over or through a six-foot fence standing on a three-foot retaining wall.

  Lowell chucked the nozzle over, the limp hose draping down the other side. He backed up five steps and studied the obstacle. I glanced toward the engine to see if the truckies were on scene and coming with bolt cutters. I turned in time to witness Lowell hurtling through the air. He collided with the fence and clung to its crown like a cat. He somehow heaved his body up and over, crashing down onto the roof of a dilapidated Dodge. He got up, grabbed the nozzle, and worked his way through a scattering of junk to the oily curtain billowing from an open garage door.

  I moved to the fence and fed the line over until I could see he had enough slack. I took several steps back, set down the Halligan and hand light, and made my best launch for it. Me and my seventy plus pounds of extra gear bounced off the chain link and back onto the road. In the corner of my eye, I caught Engine Three pulling up on the opposite end of the alley.

  I saw Lowell masked and ready to go. The Engine Three firefighters would be with him soon.

  I took several steps back before leaping upward again, stalling at the peak, poised for a rearward drop, when a nearby tree offered me its limb. I grabbed ahold and yanked myself over, crashing onto the car roof and rolling to the ground.

  I met up with Lowell and pulled on my mask. “There’s four cars on fire.”